pt. 197 - emily dickinson

BELOW THE WATER LINE

(pt. 197)

When you're a kid, you think that

things go on forever  -  Summer

was fifteen months long, waiting

in a room for something to occur

was at least a year. Kids hear things:

they hear parents make mention of

something to come, or some aunt

start talking about next Winter.

It's all confusing. Time, overlaps

and stays, but runs straight out  -

slow, and long. By the time

you're old, it's all different: Time

spins always, and spinning on

it spins just ahead of you but

dragging you along in its wake.

You hear all the jokes, with Death

around the corner  -  'Don't buy

any green bananas; don't waste

your money on any multi-year

subscriptions.' It's all meant to be

funny, but things start to have an

end, an 'event horizon' as now it's

said. Now you want Time to slow

down, or even want it to stop.

-

Back in Elmira College, in those old,

dumb days, I had an English teacher

named Mr. Steber. That's really all I

recall. He was a good enough guy,

seemed a little overly busy, but, yeah.

I wrote a paper once, he loved it. It

was something that had been always

on my mind. Emily Dickinson. A

poem of hers called 'Because I

Could Not Stop For Death.' Never

a real big Emily Dickinson fan, this

piece had, nonetheless, long before

caught me up. I rather dislike

effeminate, closeted stuff, the sort

of material she wrote. It reeks of

another era, a time and place we

no longer 'get' or understand clearly  -

how people thought, the sort of things

they harbored, the kinds of dreams

they had, the visions and images

they saw. Life may be one continuum,

and even that can be argued, but I

know for sure that my continuum

was never hers. No matter. And little

to do with Avenel  -  not an Avenel

type poem at all. Unless you'd re-write

it, maybe, 'I took my hammer, and 

heaved it at your face: the scars are 

real, they've left a trace.' Know what 

I mean? Anyway, I digress. Back to 

Emily: this poem  always grabbed me

in a way I couldn't stipulate or describe.

As a youngster, I'd spend a lot of time

reading things a bit out of my league,

fudging some of it, pretending I 'got' it,

understood. Most of the times I did, 

but still, there are places and experiences 

and ideas and emotions you just can't 

share, as a kid. You haven't amassed 

anything to reflect from, you're still

reeling from 'first exposure' to things.

It's nothing but pretense, like writing

mystery when you're seven, to use a

truly bad example. I'd read this and just

stick it in my quiver of 'things' to be

gone back to later. It's pretty much an

easy, nothing poem, as far as language 

and the creative art of structure or word 

use go. Nothing magical, just a 

matter-of-fact recitation about something

by someone. (You can find this by just

typing in 'because I could not stop for

death he kindly stopped for me'. It brings

you, first up, and it's really all you need, to

 'academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu'  -  the poem

deals with stuff a kid doesn't need to 'see' 

from that, rather weird, angle. Death 

picks this person up in its coach, they 

ride together through town, seeing the 

sights, this and that, and eventually coming

to the grave. Forever. Eternity. The horses.

Pretty stunning, for me anyway. There are

a few bits of language (clothing stuff) that

are strange, but it's explained in that

commentary at the CUNY site. No matter.

The narrator's voice comes from beyond

the grave, a panorama of what it sees as

it passes through the small town where

it (she) lived. A slow-motion montage, 

say, of Death's free ride, freely given, 

and, sort of, freely taken :  a dignified 

grace of horses, facing eternity, the school, 

with kids playing in the play-yard, fields 

of grain, the setting sun. What else can 

I say? It's difficult to share, unless you

too get the premise. There are some 

weird bits of clothing mentioned in it.

I hadn't a clue, until much later when it

was explained for me, what the reference

was  -  'tippet tulle' and such. All it meant

kind of, was that she was chilly and had 

only a thin scarf around her shoulders.

-

This all sounds so vague, and stupid, but

the point I'm trying for is that I possessed

certain sensibilities that were not backed 

up nor bolstered by the 'place' I was in  -  

a far more rather crude location. For instance,

I am used to the train platforms at Princeton, 

and at Metuchen, one being half of the other. 

By comparison, Avenel is none of that at all.

Princeton was all hi-hat, monied, fancy duds,

fine approached. Metuchen was half that, a

mixed, far less glorious, business crowd, one

that was engulfed within itself, doing chores

of a day's work. Princeton rather 'owned' the

chores. The Avenel station, by contrast, is all

nails and screws. The people who do the work

of what those who 'do' the work will need.

A real working crowd; maids maybe, janitors

and go-fers, getters, haulers, scrubbers. Those

who labor. Still using the train, but because

they 'have' to, not because the Lexus or Benz 

is in the shop. Yeah, they'll all die the same, 

and that same Death wagon will come get

them, whether they stop for it, or it stops for

them. Anyway, that's the essence here of my

silly lesson. I'd bet the tired, and the underclass,

are always the ones more ready to go.

-

So, I wrote this paper on that Dickinson poem;

it was more a labor of love than it was a paper.

I was in love with writing, and just went on

and on about varied points, critical and not

so. It was probably the most unschooled

piece of 'critical' writing this guy had ever

been exposed to  -  real punky, foot-up-

your-ass poetry stuff. That was my joke 

about the metrical foot of 'poetry' and all 

its academic junky stuff. The poetry 

cokeheads, the metrical day-trippers, 

the context whores. I loved it all and

ripped everyone and everything up, 

like a real piece of Elmira Dadaist 

writing. it was Art, man, A-R-T. 

Made me feel good, at last, about 

something. That was about 1975. 

The Shah of Iran was on 60 Minutes,

Carter was in the White House. 

America was underway with its own 

re-examination of selfhood, the 

Oakland A's won like three 

pennants in a row, and maybe 

World Series too, I forget. (plural, 

series, that). Weird names were 

everywhere. Rico Carty. Patty Hearst 

as Tanya. The USA, like a kid running

off for the first time  -  everything under

review. All that hippie stuff was dead and 

gone, except maybe for Wavey Gravy,

real name Hugh Romney. Everything in

its place was dead serious about itself and

darkly philosophical, and strange. 'What 

are we as a people?' - stupid things like that, 

as if anyone cared. We aren't anything, 

asshole, just make sure you've 

paid your cable bill.

-

I'd come home every so often to Avenel. 

It was a different world, strange land. 

Every kid I used  to know was some 

'five-years-ago-it-was-over' leftover 

hippy garage-band pot-smoker. My 

own brother was driving a lift-kit, 

hot-rodded Chevy Nova, for God's 

sake. No one had told any of them

them times had changed. The 1970's 

in Avenel were like going back in 

time, except that the time was only 

three years ago. There wasn't a virginal 

girl left, and all the guys were still 

scrubbing their scabs and bumps. 

Just all too much for me. I would just 

sit and gape, wondering how did any 

of this happen, and how'd it happen 

here? There are some places always 

thought to be on the cutting edge. 

There are other, backwater places  -  

yes, like Avenel  -  that only get the

blowback, the effulgence that dribbles

in reverse and re-enters through the 

old cracks. You do get a second 

chance at yesterday! I realized all you 

had to do was get on a bus or train

and return to Avenel  -  you get to

 re-do it all again.